The Easel

29th January 2019

Elmgreen & Dragset: This Is How We Bite Our Tongue. Whitechapel Gallery, London

James Cahill | The Burlington Magazine | 15th January 2019

These Scandinavian artists have a knack for the astonishing – they once installed a replica Prada store out in the Texas desert. Now it’s a derelict community swimming pool inside a London gallery. This work has the “patina of fiction” and tells a story, with “a wink and a nod”, about the decline in civic facilities. “Gentrification makes everything so smooth and nice but it also excludes people.”

Bill Viola/ Michelangelo, Royal Academy: where the mythic meets the meaningless

Hettie Judah | iNews | 26th January 2019

Apparently, Viola was keen to do this show after seeing some Michelangelo drawings. Putting one’s work up against the guy that painted the Sistene Chapel … WOAH!!  You can guess the result. The linked piece is admirably restrained – “some fundamental challenges in this pairing”; others cannot resist nasty: “like the difference between a brilliant mathematician and a spaniel with a calculator.”

22nd January 2019

Pierre Bonnard review: monumental, monstrous – and rubbish at dogs

Adrian Searle | The Guardian | 21st January 2019

Bonnard’s claim to fame is his quiet interiors, sharply framed and with surprising colour juxtapositions. Very good, yes, but enough to make him truly great? The reception to his latest show is positive but few critics seem passionate. “All that colour, all that fidgety brushwork. There is a great deal of niggling about, and piling paint on.”  More images are here.

At Tate Britain

Tom Crewe | London Review of Books | 24th January 2019

Amidst numerous critics flinging insults at Burne-Jones’ work, one tries to be more specific. What exactly are the shortcomings of this member of the Pre-Raphaelite movement? Flawed technique is a big one; an unvarying style, “cumbersomely itself”; his figures tend to “lifelessness”. The verdict – “there are pleasures to be had. But love him? I’m trying to find a way.”

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